


Where Love Rules (Epilogue)

by Medeafic



Series: Supernova [17]
Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Asphyxiation, Breathplay, Caning, M/M, Mentions of general D/s and sadomasochism, Riding Crop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-22
Updated: 2011-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is still struggling with his conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Love Rules (Epilogue)

**Author's Note:**

> It's my personal opinion that there is no way to make breathplay safe, but it's a lovely thing to fantasize about if you're into that, and hence this fic takes some liberties with the realities of it.  If you'd like more information on the problems and issues in asphyxiation/BCP, I suggest [this essay ](http://www.jaywiseman.com/SEX_BDSM_Breath_Medical_Realities.html)by Jay Wiseman.

“I suppose he must be good for you.”

Chris stares. “You _what_ now?”

His publicist sighs, as though she doesn’t want to admit it. “You look a lot happier. You’re getting better press, too, now that you’re not moping around everywhere.”

“It’s always about the press with you,” Chris says, but he grins.

Chris hasn’t been looking forward to this meeting, not now that he and Zach are officially dating again. He expected a lecture about ‘being careful’ and ‘keeping things on the down-low’ and probably some frosty comments about ‘Mr. Quinto’. But all his publicist has done is tell him about a new photoshoot she wants him to do, and then grudgingly give way on the Zach Issue.

“Press is my _job_ ,” she says, and Chris thinks about pushing it with her, just to be irritating, but he knows it’s as close to a blessing on the relationship as she’s going to give him. “Just –”

“Be careful. I know. Zach isn’t exactly desperate to burst out of the closet any time soon.”

“Actually,” she says, as though the words are physically hurting her, “I think he’s handling the whole issue quite well, for now at least.”

Chris is so surprised by her praise that he forgets for a moment his own unease with keeping everything secret, and finds himself agreeing to some more promotional work for Ralph Lauren.

He has lunch with Corey the next day, who is in town for a quick visit. Zach has meetings and can’t make it, but Chris has no objections to seeing Corey alone. He feels like he’s friends with Corey in his own right, now. And he’ll always be grateful to Corey for reaching out to him when he was at his worst.

“Looking good, Pine,” Corey says when he walks in. “But I have to watch myself. Zach’ll go nuts if he hears I’ve been flirting with you again.”

Chris grins and sits down. “My lips are sealed.” It’s a tiny restaurant with discreetly dim lighting and overly-expensive, overly-small portions of food. But Chris likes it because it’s rarely busy and rarely scouted by photographers.

Corey, his hands flying around with enthusiasm, tells Chris what he’s been doing with Before the Door, and Chris nods and eats, letting the flow of chatter wash over him. Maybe that’s one reason he likes Corey so much – it’s easy to be with someone who does the conversational heavy-lifting.

Eventually, though, Corey winds down, and gives Chris a sheepish look. “So, dude. I’m sorry if I had anything to do with what went down between you and Zach.”

Chris furrows his brow in confusion. “How do you mean?”

“I opened my mouth that one time about something Zach said, and you two had a fight about it. And then I kept my mouth _shut_ after I saw you were in bad shape, even though I really thought I should have said something to Zach. I don’t even know what to do anymore.” He grins, but Chris can see he’s worried.

“Water under the bridge.”

“But if I’d told Zach how tough everything was on you after you guys broke up –”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” But looking at Corey is like looking in a mirror. Chris can see guilt all over his face, and he knows how consuming it can feel.

Chris has been wrapping himself up in blame over and over again, like a suffocating blanket. Every time he thinks about That Night, when he tried to push Zach into breathplay, when everything was wrong between them, he feels another smothering layer added, and he’s not sure if he can stand much more. He’s tried to talk to Suzanne about it, but he gets too overwhelmed to do more than say, _I feel bad because of what I did_. The one time she pressed him to expand, he had to leave the session early, too agitated, too upset, his stomach threatening to unload itself on the carpet.

He sees Zach watching him sometimes, looking sympathetic, and wants to talk to him about it but he can’t, not yet, his voice deserting him just like it does with Suzanne. And it wouldn’t be fair, anyway, dumping it on Zach. Zach was the wounded party, after all.

Chris comes back to himself with a rush. “So you’re telling me I’m _not_ the Yoko Ono here?” Corey is asking. He’s joking, but Chris can feel the undercurrents still.

“Look, we had to break up. It was going to happen sooner or later, because we weren’t in a good place, but it wasn’t you. And _I_ asked you not to tell Zach about how I was doing, so that’s not your fault either. Zach and I fucked it up on our own, but things are getting back on track. We’re working it out, making things good again.”

Corey looks so relieved that it makes Chris smile. “Damn, I feel a lot better now,” he says. He pushes back in his chair and starts looking wicked again. “In fact, I’m kind of like the savior of your relationship, right? Because keeping my mouth shut drove Zach _crazy_ , and then he dragged his sorry ass back to you, and then you guys talked it out, and –”

“Moosa,” Chris says. “No.”

Corey laughs.

“Besides, we didn’t just talk it out,” Chris says. “We didn’t get back together that night.” In his heart, he’s still not entirely sure that things are okay between them even now. The sex is good – _great_ , even – but slow, sweet, devoid of pain. Zach holds him down, but it’s just playful, not intense. And his bites are too gentle now – nibbles more than anything else. It’s confusing, and Chris wishes it were different, but he’s not pushing Zach into something he’s uncomfortable with, not _again_. He’s decided to wait it out for as long as it takes. He deliberately puts the thought aside and tunes back in to what Corey is saying.

“…and Zach was about to nominate you for canonization by the time he got back to New York. Neal and I had to suffer through numerous renditions of Why Chris Pine is the Best Human Being Ever. Seriously, I started to hate on you a bit.”

Chris starts chuckling at that. “And yet here you are, having lunch with me.”

“Well, you said you’d pay. And you know me, Pine. Any time I get a chance to gaze into your baby blues, I’m there.”

  
***

  
“Zach, I’ve been wondering.” Chris turns over in Zach’s lap to look up at him.

“Hm?”

“Put down the book.”

“But I’m just at the _good_ part.” Zach puts it down, though, and only sighs a little.

It’s been four days since lunch with Corey, and Chris has decided it’s time to try to throw off the blanket of regret. He’s decided to come at it sideways, to try for some of the details before the big picture. “That night, the night when I tried to get you to…you know.”

“Asphyxiate you?” Zach _sounds_ calm, but it’s so hard to tell sometimes, and especially now that he’s done so much therapy and he’s calmer in general about _everything_. He was pretty damn centered anyway before things got difficult between them, but it was a more tightly-wound control than the easy, flowing-like-water effect he has going on now.

“Yeah.”

“What about it?” If he gets any more neutral in tone, Chris thinks, he’ll have to check Zach’s ears just to make sure he’s still human.

“You said I should snap my fingers, because I couldn’t safe-word.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t seem…I mean, what if I’d passed out without you noticing? Or if I panicked? Or if I went into subspace? I couldn’t have snapped my fingers at you then.”

“You wouldn’t have gone into subspace that night,” Zach says softly, but then grins. “You think I wasn’t being safe?” He bounces his knee a few times, and Chris’s head rebounds, but Zach is just teasing.

“No. You’re always safe, as safe as you can be. Risk-aware, at least. But I just wondered.”

“But you know it’s _not_ safe, that kind of thing. It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis.”

“You said you could make it safer.”

“Saf _er_ is not _safe_. And I was still terrified, anyway.” The words hang in the air between them, and Zach looks almost surprised that they’ve come out, but he curls his fingers into Chris’s hair and smiles, relaxed.

Chris starts to feel the familiar guilt rolling over him like a tidal wave, but he tries to ignore it, hold it back just a while longer. “Terrified like Shadow terrified?”

“No. Terrified that I would kill you. But I mean – I’m always scared of that.” Zach shifts, uncomfortable now, and Chris sits up.

“Kill me? Like – lose control, go all Sylar on me? Oh. No. You don’t mean that.”

Zach looks like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or be offended, but ends up at accepting. “After all the work I’ve done in therapy, I actually trust myself more now. So, no. I meant literally _kill you_ , by accident. Some of the things we’ve done in the past have been really risky, but asphyxiation is one of the most dangerous things I can think of, without involving broken bones. It’s too easy to make a mistake, or just – too easy for accidents to happen.”

Chris stands up and walks a few paces around the room, aimless. The guilt is rushing in, seeping around the temporary wall of rationality he built up to be able to have this conversation. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I usually just think about how those things affect me. I forget sometimes how much responsibility you have to take on. Is that why we haven’t done anything intense so far since we got back together?”

“I haven’t wanted to push you. You seem on edge sometimes. I don’t want to bring back any bad memories for you.”

Chris tips his head to the side, watching him closely. “So…that night, you were frightened, but you did it anyway.”

“That night –” Zach pauses, and he looks momentarily afraid again, but he keeps speaking. “I would have done anything you wanted that night, Christopher, but that wasn’t a good thing. That was a selfish thing. I just wanted you back. And I should have said no, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry about that, because it’s caused you so much grief.”

Chris returns to the couch and sits down, feeling sick and cold and lost and _guilty_ , and it comes rushing out of him before he can stop it. “I can’t forgive myself for making you do that. I just can’t. And I know I have to, but I can’t.”

Zach slides his hand over Chris’s, clasps it tight. “You will, eventually.” When Chris doesn’t respond, he says, “So here’s an idea. Do you want to see how I would’ve done it?”

Chris looks up, somber. “Yeah?”

“It would’ve been like this. Can I?” Chris nods. Zach puts his hand over Chris’s mouth and nose and suddenly his breath is gone. He stares with surprise into Zach’s calm brown eyes and fights the instinct to pull away. Zach lets his hand drop after a few seconds.

“I still don’t –”

And he does it again, covers up Chris’s face so he can’t get any air, and it’s far more confronting and scary than Chris ever thought it would be, but at the same time he’s rapidly getting hard. When Zach lets go this time, Chris croaks, “One more.”

Zach ignores him. “It was going to be like that, with breaks in between so you could get some oxygen. Not one sustained gesture where I stopped you breathing until you passed out. That would be well beyond any risk I’m prepared to take. I would never do that. And it’s better, anyway, if you manage to get breaths in.”

“Better?”

“Better for both of us. It adds to the scene for you, wondering when I’ll let you breathe and when I won’t. And I like hearing you gasping for air.” Chris gives an involuntary shiver and keeps listening as Zach lists the ways he could make it safer. Not safe, but safer. “But obviously, it’s not _ever_ safe to do something like that,” Zach finishes up. “I mean, you knew that, right?”

Chris pulls at Zach until they’re lying tangled up in each other, draped across the sofa, and stares at the ceiling for a while, thinking. “I guess. Yes, I knew.” It’s difficult to get the words out. “That’s why I wanted you to do it that night, because I knew you didn’t want to.” It’s getting too much, so he changes tack, tries a new angle. “So the finger-snapping thing – that was more for me to feel safer? But I could have safe-worded in between, when you took your hand off.”

“Maybe. You would have been concentrating on breathing, not speaking. But I would have done my best to watch out for you.”

Chris thinks about the time he forgot his safe words, and Zach deliberately supplied them, and believes him.

Zach is heavy on top of him, but Chris savors the feeling. It’s little things like Zach’s weight holding him down, or the way he bounces on his feet when he’s excited, or how he wraps his fingers lightly and unconsciously around Chris’s wrist when they sleep, that Chris swears he’s going to catalogue and remember and never take for granted again.

Like subspace. If that ever comes back again, he’ll _always_ be grateful for it, every time. Because he hasn’t been able to get there, not for a long time and no matter how much he tries. He knows why, at least: because he doesn’t feel like he deserves it.

He pushes the thought aside for now. “It’s a lot of work, isn’t it? What you do, I mean – the set-up and the preparation and research and everything. To make sure the magic happens.”

Zach makes a noise of agreement. His breathing has started to get deeper and longer, and Chris wonders if he’s going to fall asleep. That would be okay. Chris feels like he could nap too, under his blanket of Zach.

“Don’t you ever feel like it’s too much work?” Chris keeps his voice quiet, just in case Zach is already beyond answering.

“Never for you.” Zach mumbles the words and then snuggles further down into Chris’s neck, yawns. “It’s always worth it.”

“It really is like a magic trick, isn’t it? Like, an illusion. You have to think it out and set everything up carefully, and still keep me distracted from the mechanics of it, because if I knew how it was done it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Yeah, it’s like a magic trick. I am the David Copperfield of domination. Only with less fake tan.” He’s amused, less sleepy now.

“It could be worse. You could be Criss Angel.”

Zach chuckles.

“Do you ever feel…” Chris sighs. He’s not sure how to phrase it. “All that work, and then the drop afterwards–”

“I don’t drop every time.”

“Not every time, no, but then some times are worse than others. Don’t you ever start thinking that maybe it’s too much?”

Zach is quiet for a long time, until Chris starts wondering if he’s fallen asleep, but then he replies. “No. Sometimes it’s more intense than other times, and that can be tiring, but the payoff is always worth the effort, and the drop. Some people stop playing because they don’t feel like the outcome is worth the input anymore, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way. But if you do – if you ever start to feel that way, tomorrow or next week or years down the track, that’s okay, and we can work something out together.”

Chris wants to say _No, I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way either_ , but he’s so struck by the longevity Zach sees in their relationship that he’s left with his mouth hanging open.

“Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” Zach’s voice is tender and calm, but Chris can feel his heartbeat accelerating, hammering through his own ribs and into Chris’s chest. “Because that’s okay. We can work something out, I promise.”

“No. No, definitely not. That’s not what I’m trying to tell you. I just wondered what it was like from your perspective. The payoff is still worth it for me, every time. Well, except when I…That night. The breathplay thing. That wasn’t good.”

“That wasn’t,” Zach confirms. His heartbeat is dropping back to normal.

“I’m sorry,” Chris whispers, his throat closing up even as he says the words. “I shouldn’t have tried to make you do that. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are. I forgave you a long time ago.”

Chris shakes his head. He can’t speak.

“I wish you could forgive yourself,” Zach says. He sounds sad and caring at the same time, and it’s far more than anything Chris feels he merits.

Chris pushes gently at him and sits up, trying to force down the lump in his throat, get his words out around it. “I’ll never do that again,” he says at last, his voice hoarse. “I’ll never mess around with your comfort zone like that again.”

“I know,” Zach says again. He sounds completely confident. “It was a mistake. You were upset. I was being an asshole, and–”

But Chris can’t listen to it, not right now. The remorse and shame are overwhelming him again, and he’s disgusted at himself. “I have to go,” he says, slides out of Zach’s embrace and stands up. He manages to resist the temptation to put his hands over his ears. “I should go.”

“Chris, I know you find it hard to discuss, but it seems like things are getting worse for you instead of better. When we talked my problem over, you gave me that awesome rubber band theory, so do you want to try talking it over again, what happened that night? Maybe we could think about—”

“Not now. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  
***

  
Suzanne seems disappointed with him, although it might be his imagination. “I know I’m a coward,” he says eventually. “But I just can’t talk it out with him, not yet.”

She sits back in her chair, regarding him, until he can’t take the silence any more.

“I’m _trying_ ,” he insists.

“Here’s the thing, Chris. What you’re doing is punishing yourself.”

“I know that.”

“I wonder if you’ve considered it fully.” Chris spreads his arms, _Please, enlighten me_. “Do you think it’s possible that you’re getting a sense of gratification out of this?”

Chris glares at her, and right now, it’s anger that he feels instead of guilt. “That’s total bullshit. _Gratification?_ This is because I like pain, right?”

But Suzanne just looks at him, looks at the clock, and suggests he think about it for next time.

Screw that, though, he’s not going back, not after _that_. All this time he’s thought Suzanne has been fine with who he is, and then she throws that in his face? He’s so mad about it, he complains at length to Zach, a half-hour litany of how unprofessional it is and how ludicrous her suggestion was and how he’s done with seeing her and he’ll find someone else if she has such a problem with it.

“Pine,” Zach says eventually, his voice sharp. “Please. Zip it, just for a minute or two. You’ve been carrying on about this since you got here.”

Chris glares at him then, and is half-inclined to bitch him out as well, but then his anger management training suddenly kicks in and he takes a deep breath, counts to five. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just pissed.”

“I don’t know why,” Zach says, all equanimity again. “It’s not like she was putting you down. And honestly, you _are_ getting kind of martyr-like over the whole thing.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Zach sighs, and gives a small smile. “I’m just saying, maybe you should think about what she said. She might have a point, you know? You’re holding on to that night like it’s _doing_ something for you.”

“Just because I’m a masochist doesn’t mean I enjoy torturing myself emotionally,” Chris snarls.

“You’re getting all comfy with that word,” Zach notes with approval. “Good for you. Suzanne’s working!”

Chris thinks of everything he could say, but all those words seem overwrought and defensive in the face of Zach’s clear support for Suzanne. There doesn’t seem much point in arguing about it, and besides, sex seems like it would be a more constructive use of his time right now, so he just agrees. “Sure, I guess. Yeah, she’s working. Hey, do you wanna play for a while? I need to get out of my head.”

“So you’ll go back to Suzanne?”

“If you’ll come and use the riding crop on me for a while, I’ll go back. I’ll even think about what she said.”

“Well, then. I believe we have a deal.”

And that suits Chris just fine, although he doesn’t slip under into subspace, and Zach uses a light hand with the crop. Ultimately it leaves Chris feeling unsatisfied. Satisfied with his orgasm, forced out of him by Zach’s insistent hand, sure. But the pain portion of the sex is less than what Chris was seeking. He doesn’t say anything, just tries to show how much he enjoys it when Zach is whipping him, and asks for more, and more, until Zach is more interested in fucking him than hitting him. It’s not quite enough to scratch the itch, but he doesn’t want to push beyond Zach’s boundaries.

Chris is beginning to wonder if he’ll ever get the old Zach back, the predatory, scary, intense, _fun_ Zach who used to order him around politely with a steely tone and scratch, bite, slap, hurt him. Everything seems so… _vanilla_.

Chris is surprised to realize it, but he misses that other Zach.

On the plus side, Zach has been very receptive to Chris’s new relationship rules. He’s agreed to everything on the list, and more importantly, he’s actively taken steps to implement them, like letting Chris watch him come as he jerks off in the shower. Chris hasn’t been allowed to touch _and_ watch at the same time yet, but that’s fine by him for now. He knows some kind of power element is important to Zach, and Chris is still getting what he wants, so it’s win-win.

They’ve even discussed the idea of Zach subbing again, but Chris is less interested in doing that right now.

“It’s more a proviso,” he explains. “Like, a clause I can activate if I feel the need. But I really, really don’t feel the need right now, man. Trust me. It wouldn’t be good.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Zach says, and he has that _I’m being brave_ expression that Chris finds more adorable than puppies and kittens combined, and he has to kiss him for a long, long time.

There has been no more chai, and Zach has been more open, sharing some of his fantasies and dreams. Chris finds he could actually stand not to hear about some of them, but he listens without censure, because he wants to understand. Zach has what Chris thinks are terrible, frightening nightmares, but he describes them with such bliss that it’s difficult to call them _bad_ dreams. Every so often, too, Zach asks again whether Chris wants to read his journals, any of them, or listen to his therapy tapes. He has scores of mini-cassettes and CDs stacked away neatly in one of the toy boxes, labeled and dated, and one flash drive simply tagged “ _Paul_.” It takes only a few moments for Chris to realize what’s wrong with the scenario.

“You only had a few session with each of these therapists. This guy, three times. This guy, five times. This guy – once? Really?”

“He…didn’t like me,” Zach says with a wry smile. “But, yeah. I used to bolt early. And often.”

“But you’re sticking with Paul?”

“I’m not so afraid of what I’ll find now,” Zach explains, shrugging. “And I trust you. I believe you, when you say you love me. When you say you love what I do.”

_I used to love what you did, but you don’t do it anymore_ , Chris thinks, with a twinge of regret. He misses the intense play more every day, but he hasn’t brought it up again with Zach, because he doesn’t want to push.

He also doesn’t want to listen to the tapes, or read Zach’s journals, not yet. Maybe not ever. But he’s writing again for Zach in the journal he used during the 24/7 trial, to Zach’s delight, although he tries to cover it with a thin veneer of nonchalance. And Chris, feeling sappy and a little foolish, finds himself writing bad poetry and song lyrics and even short stories sometimes, which Zach loves trying to analyze, while Chris hides his face in embarrassment.

All in all, they’ve mostly integrated the old rules with the new, so that they call each other daily if they’re out of town, and one of them happily marks in the sharpie ZQ when it fades, and Chris even does yoga with Zach sometimes, in the living room. Mostly because he loves watching Zach bend and stretch, his air of peaceful concentration filling the room and making Chris feel calm just by proximity. Things are working pretty well.

Except for the guilt and the dearth of sadomasochistic sex.

  
***

  
Since a deal is a deal, Chris makes his usual appointment with Suzanne, and in the meantime thinks hard about what she – and Zach, for that matter – said to him.

“Maybe they’re right,” he mutters to his own reflection while he brushes his teeth. The guilt thing has gone on long enough; perhaps it’s just self-flagellation at this point. He wishes it could be that easy, that just wanting to give it up was enough to make it stop. But it’s not so simple.

Suzanne offers no answers either, when he asks – she gives him the old line about solutions having to come from him, and that he already knows what to do, he just hasn’t realized it yet. And so Chris thinks, almost every spare moment, about what would help him let go, until a plan starts to form.

A week later, they’re lying on Zach’s bed together, sated and sleepy after an afternoon of sex. Zach is lying on top of him, sticky but welcome. There’s still a distinct lack of intense pain, but Chris thinks he might have found a way to solve _all_ his problems.

“I’ve been thinking,” he tells Zach.

“Oh, God.”

“Don’t tease me.”

“I’m _not_. You, thinking, really does scare me.”

“ _Zach_.”

Zach sighs. “Okay. What have you been thinking?”

“I’ve been thinking maybe we should give it another shot. With the breathplay, I mean. Try it again, try to make it good.”

Chris tries to figure out if the silence that follows is a negative, or just Zach coming to terms with things. His heartbeat is steady, but the quiet stretches until Chris is sure it’s a bad sign, and he starts wondering how he can backtrack, or at least make it okay between them. “I didn’t mean to—”

“I love you,” Zach says, which is not what Chris was expecting. “I love you and I think it’s a block that we should try to get by, that particular night, and what happened. I didn’t want to bring it up, because I thought maybe it was too soon, and I thought it would be better for you to come to it yourself, but Paul suggested that we work it through together. So, yeah. Maybe we should try it again.”

“Your _therapist_ suggested that you _asphyxiate me_? Seriously, man, I have to start going to him too. Much more exciting than charting my mood every day like Suzanne wanted me to do.”

“Obviously he didn’t say _that_ , and he’s pretty anti-breath control play anyway. But he said I should think about what I could do to help you let that night go, and, well, that’s what I came up with.”

“So your way to make me feel better is by depriving me of oxygen?”

“ _You_ brought it up!” Zach points out, indignant.

Chris starts laughing. “I broke your Zen.”

“I’m still Zen,” Zach snaps, but Chris chuckles in triumph.

“Okay,” he says, once he’s calmed down. “We’re going to do it. So in keeping with our new agreement, we should talk about it.”

“I don’t want to do it like I originally planned it,” Zach says quickly. “It would have too many bad memories.”

“Okay. So how?”

Zach starts talking, telling him about a few different scenarios he’s thought out, and Chris is struck again by how inventive and creative he is; how prepared and methodical and thoughtful. He plays out the different ideas in his imagination.

“I like the bathroom one best. I like that I can watch it happen that way, in the mirror.”

“Okay. Bathroom it is. And you’re really sure?”

“Talk-therapy is all well and good, but I feel like I need some kind of action here. Not just words. So, yeah, I’m sure. When can we do it?”

“Not tonight. But you can choose when.”

“Tomorrow night. If that’s enough time for you.”

Zach kisses him, next to his ear, over his birthmark there, and Chris can feel him smiling against his skin. “Always so impatient, my Christopher. Alright. Tomorrow night.”

  
***

  
Chris turns up exactly on time to Zach’s house the next night, with a bottle of champagne and some cookie things. Zach looks most excited about the cookie things. “We can’t _drink_ before—”

“I _know_ that,” Chris sighs. “I’m not some newbie anymore, Zach. But I brought it for afterwards, if we felt like it. And, hey, those are supposed to be for after too—!” But Zach has already crammed one of the cookies into his mouth.

“Oh,” he says, spitting crumbs. “Sorry. There’re still some left.”

Once Chris has confiscated the remaining cookie things and put the champagne in the fridge, he pulls Zach towards the bedroom. “Harold and Noah?”

“They’re with Joe. I didn’t want them getting in the way if I had to call an ambulance.” Chris does a double-take, but Zach isn’t kidding. “Like I said, Christopher, it’s dangerous.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Chris feels the fear, he can’t deny it, but this is important. He’s made his cost-benefit analysis and decided to take the risk.

“Shouldn’t we be in the bathroom?” Zach asks.

Chris starts undressing automatically. “I thought it would be nice to start here.”

He waves away Zach’s awkward, “You don’t have to do that if you don’t—”

“It wouldn’t be the same without it. I know you like it. And I like it too.” Chris stripping off for Zach’s pleasure has become such an integral part of their intense scenes that it would seem strange not to do it.

“If you’re sure.”

“Zach, I’m really not looking for your polite side tonight.”

Zach rubs his hand slowly over his mouth and then nods. “Yeah.”

“And I did want to make a change to the schedule, if you’re okay with it,” Chris tells him. “If you’re not, that’s fine, but I wondered if you could use these first.” He scrabbles at the side of the bed and comes back out with the riding crop and the rattan cane. Zach still keeps them there, although he hasn’t used the cane for a long time.

“But you don’t like the cane,” Zach says slowly.

“I like the riding crop. And you like the cane. We can compromise.”

Zach gives a shake of his head, almost involuntary.

Chris steps forward and places the cane into his hand. “You know, it’s not like I soaked it,” he says with a small, nervous grin. “And I do enjoy it. I mean – I don’t _like_ it, but I enjoy it. The sensations and what it does to my head. I enjoy it more after it’s finished, sure, but I do enjoy it. And if I didn’t, I wouldn’t let you do it.” Zach finally wraps his fingers around the rattan cane, and takes the crop as well. “Please. I don’t want to push you, but really, truly, this is something I want.”

“Alright. As long as you promise you’ll safe-word if it’s too much.”

It’s not too much. It’s nowhere near too much, because Zach is as close to gentle as he can possibly be. Chris leans over the bed, frowning intently at the familiar bedspread. It’s always nerve-wracking, this time just before Zach starts, but in a good way. Like just before going on stage. But better, because this, between them, is no act.

Zach uses the crop first, and the first few blows are just light slaps until Chris starts demanding more. But he’s grateful for it, because Zach is taking his time, working him up. When he switches to the cane, Chris tenses up, but the sting is completely bearable, and Chris wonders if it’ll even leave a mark.

“Harder. Please.”

Zach only hesitates for a moment before swinging again, more forceful, wrenching out a tiny, painful noise from Chris. It’s still nothing near the pain he’s felt sometimes, but Chris can feel himself starting to drift, and he’s so excited by it that he snaps himself out of it before it even gets started. It’s frustrating.

“A little harder. Please.”

“You’re enjoying it?”

“ _Yes_. Come on. Please.”

“Really sure?”

“Jesus, Zach, will you just _hit_ me?”

And Zach gives a small, satisfied laugh.

“Hey! You were _waiting_ for me to beg for it,” Chris realizes. “You sneaky – _fuck_!”

This blow is much tougher, searing through him, but it’s what he asked for, and it’s _good_. So Chris bites at his lip or yelps in pain until his legs are locked and trembling, and Zach stops, runs a hand over his ass.

“I have to say–” Zach stops, clears his throat, and Chris can hear the tremble in his voice. “I _really_ want to fuck you right now. Maybe we could skip–”

“ _Please_. Zach. We agreed.”

Zach pulls him up from the bed, supporting Chris’s weight when he sags. Chris is sore and light-headed, and there’s a strange feeling filling up his body, from his feet to his head. He giggles. “Toes to nose, Zachary. And nose to toes.”

“What are you talking about?” Zach is amused.

“Happiness. No. It’s _joy_.” Chris smiles crazily at Zach, clutching at his shoulders. “Let’s keep doing this forever, okay?”

“Okay. We can certainly try. Bathroom now?”

Chris goes willingly, but Zach has to help him. His legs aren’t quite working properly, and he feels almost disembodied. His center of consciousness is somewhere slightly outside himself. “Fuck me, I’ve missed this,” he mumbles, and Zach understands.

“Me, too. I get envious, sometimes, you go under so completely. I wish I could get that far out of my head.”

Chris nods lazily. “You should try it again. I’d be nice to you.”

“You’re cute.” Zach stops him in the doorway of the bathroom and kisses him, hard, leaves him gasping. “And sure, we can do that. But right now I just wanna watch you struggling to breathe.”

“We are so fucking weird, you know that?”

“I know.” Zach pulls him to the sink, and Chris grabs at it thankfully, grinning at his own reflection in the mirror, and Zach’s behind him.

“I look kind of psychotic.”

“You do,” Zach agrees. “But you’re _my_ psychotic.” Chris catches his eyes in the mirror and they stare at each other, smirking, until the tension grows, and Zach’s gaze get bright and flinty, and Chris sees that old familiar look, the cold predator peeking out, and he’s missed it so much that he starts laughing.

“Bite me. I mean, literally. Bite me.”

Zach looks _hungry_ at Chris’s words, and grabs at his shoulders from behind, puts a hand gently over his throat. Chris can feel his pulse pushing into Zach’s fingers and he keeps slipping under, inching into subspace, watching Zach incline his head down. Chris feels lips but no teeth, and it’s so goddamn frustrating, but when he tries to press up into his mouth, Zach pulls back. “ _Please_ ,” Chris says.

“Nope. I’ll do it when _I_ feel like it,” Zach tells him, and then he smiles, sharp and dangerous, and Chris squirms.

“Would it help if I beg you?”

“No. In fact, I think you should just be quiet now.” Zach murmurs right into his ear, and it raises goose-bumps on Chris’s arms, makes his head buzz. “You ready?”

Chris nods. They’ve agreed to a safe-signal tonight, so when Zach winds one arm around his chest, hugging him tight, Chris grabs his wrist: he’ll let go if he wants to stop. _Or, obviously, if you pass out_ , Zach had added when they discussed it, but Chris is blithely confident that won’t happen.

They look at each other in the mirror again, at Chris’s hand clutching Zach’s wrist. It’s too reminiscent of That Night, when Chris grabbed him to stop him, so he slides his hand further down Zach’s forearm, and it feels better that way. He thinks he can feel Zach relaxing as well.

Chris closes his eyes for a moment to concentrate on the sensation, and Zach starts pinching at his nipples with his other hand, and then down his side until Chris is wriggling in pleasure and panting. He’s tugging at his own cock sporadically, his tender ass pressing into the denim of Zach’s jeans, and Zach is telling him encouraging things like _what a good boy you are_ and _no coming till I say_ and _holy fuck, you’re so gorgeous like this_.

“Watch,” Zach says quietly, and grabs Chris’s face to make him look at the mirror. Chris barely recognizes himself; he looks high, or drunk maybe. Feverish. His chest is flushed and marked from Zach’s fingers, and his eyes are glittering. Zach swoops in to give him one fierce nip on the side of his neck, and the squeal of pain is so familiar that he inhales sharply, his heartbeat picking up with excitement. Zach immediately covers up his nose and mouth, pulling Chris’s head back against his shoulder. Chris can still see himself through half-lidded eyes, and sees Zach’s face too, a picture of concentration and desire.

It’s fine at first, no big deal, although his ears pop like he’s in an airplane when he tries to breathe out. It’s weird, because Chris has never thought all that much about breathing, or not being able to do it. Now that he can’t, it’s strange, not really erotic in an of itself–

Zach takes his hand away and Chris breathes in deeply a few times before he’s clamped back up again. It feels so final and so blank, like an iced-over lake. Inside, his lungs are giving spasms, seeking air by instinct, and his heart is getting faster; he feels like the water underneath the frozen surface, still swirling under the ice and getting more turbulent with each passing second.

“Go on,” Zach says, sounding as calm as ever. “Jack your cock for me. Yeah, like that. You’re so good when you want to be, Christopher. No – no coming yet.” Because Chris is so rapidly there, right on edge, that it surprises him, and maybe Zach too, because Zach’s reflection in the mirror is smiling in an incredulous way.

Zach was right, Zach is always right about this kind of thing, but it still surprises Chris despite the inevitability: it does make it better, the fact that he gets time to suck in desperate lungfuls of air, his breathing harsh and desperate and whimpering noises escaping from him. After only a few rounds, he wants to struggle, even as he’s telling himself not to, but Zach enjoys that, making a low, dangerous noise when Chris digs his fingers into Zach’s forearm.

The only thing anchoring him right now, keeping him from flying off to the stars, is Zach, still fully dressed and holding him so tight that Chris would probably have difficulty breathing even if he didn’t have a hand over his mouth.  Zach is watching him with an intense, calculating gaze and saying things quietly to him. The words swim into Chris’s ear, something about _permission_.

“You can come for me, now. You have permission.”

So Chris does, all over the counter, like he has several other times, but he’s not aware of how much mess he makes or whether he looks ridiculous, wheezing for oxygen when Zach removes his hand afterwards, because the orgasm has sucked everything out of him, and all that he sees is the edge of subspace, and he jumps into it wholeheartedly.

He’s lying on the bed when he comes back to himself, limbs heavy with languor, and his face is wet. He hopes it’s sweat, but from the way Zach is nuzzling and licking at him, he’s pretty sure it’s not. But hey, at least he’s predictable – maybe if he _hadn’t_ cried, it would have been a bad sign.

He opens his mouth to say as much, make a joke about it, but what comes out instead is, “Break me apart. Put me back together.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Mmf,” Chris says in agreement.

“Good thing I’m amazing at jigsaws, then. You’re complex.”

It’s no good. He can’t find the right words, so he grunts acknowledgement; that’s as conversational as he’s going to get right now.

“You were reciting poetry for me again,” Zach says, touching his lips to Chris’s nose. “I mean, apart from the earlier Dr. Seuss homage.” Chris looks blankly back at him. “Nose to toes and toes to nose? Okay, you’re still too far gone for humor.”

Chris makes a questioning noise, and Zach is adept enough to interpret it.

“I’m not sure what the quote was; you were mumbling. But it sounded familiar. Something about doubting the stars?”

Chris thinks it over and then smiles, nodding when Zach asks him if he recognizes it. “Shakespeare. You should know it too.” When he’s fully recovered his voice, he repeats the quote from _Hamlet_.

_Doubt thou the stars are fire,_  
 _Doubt that the sun doth move,_  
 _Doubt truth to be a liar,_  
 _But never doubt I love._

__Zach says with faux-seriousness, “But the sun _doesn’t_ move, not relative to Earth, anyway, and—”

“You’re really going to argue with The Bard?” Chris asks with a grin, and lets Zach push him down hard into the bed again.

“Maybe later,” Zach says. “It’s my turn to come.” He slides on top of Chris, cock rubbing through the sweat and come on his stomach, and begins to rock back and forth. Bites down carefully on Chris’s shoulder to fix the position.

Subspace comes on quickly this time, as easily as it used to, and Chris lets himself get carried away on the current of it as soon as Zach tells him he can go.

“How do you feel?” Zach asks later, after recovery, when they’re unabashedly passing the bottle of champagne back and forth to swig from it, and Zach is getting cookie crumbs all over the bed.

"Good.  Fantastic.  Light."  Chris can feel the weight is gone.

“Stars on your mind again.  That’s where you go, isn’t it?  When you float off like that?”

“Usually. Yes. Up into the night sky.” He sees stars most of the time when he’s soaring, Ursa Major guiding his path upward. And between the next _Trek_ shoot and flying with Zach, Chris realizes with a rush of euphoria that he’s spending half of his life out among the stars right now.

He’s never felt so free.


End file.
